The Reader

Catching up on the Oscars fever, last night I saw the movie The Reader. It is a post-War drama based on the best-selling novel by Bernhard Schlink. I haven’t had the opportunity to read the book, but watching the film, I was left drenched in many questions about love and humanity, as opposed to the morality and justice expected to be followed in our society- something we call Ethics. I have probably pondered these questions a time too many here in this blog, from the books that I’ve come across or movies that I’ve seen in the past. And well, it presented itself again.

I don’t want to explore the historical angle of the film, although briefly, it is about the time of the cataclysmic Holocaust where the character of Kate Winslet figured in a crime against the Polish Jews in Auchwitz. She was held accountable for the death of hundreds of men, women, and children, after allowing them to perish in the fire while working as a guard in Hitler’s concentration camp.

In 1958 Germany, Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet) was a middle-aged tram worker who came across a fifteen-year old Michael while she was walking home one rainy day and saw him retching near her apartment building. She helped him get home where he was diagnosed with scarlet fever. A few months after he recovered, Michael visited Hannah to thank her. The boy develops an almost immediate sexual curiosity about Hannah, although she was twice his age, and calls him "kid". Hannah was an unsmiling woman, gruff and stubborn. But an affair developed between them in no time. Despite her obstinate front, and a vast reserve of unspoken sadness, they seemed to fall into a sensuous sexual relationship. During their liaisons, Hannah would order Michael to read his schoolbooks to her after they make love. Together they explored the literature of Anton Chekov, and the Odyssey.

One day, she was told by her workmate that she had been promoted and would no longer be working in the tram, but inside the office. She didn’t take this news kindly, and she suddenly disappeared, leaving nothing behind but a confused and broken-hearted Michael.

Almost a decade later, when Michael is a law student, he comes across Hannah again He was observing a Nazi war crime trial, where she was a defendant, along with a few others who worked as guards in the concentration camp. She was singled out as having been responsible for drafting a report that put hundreds of Jews to a gut-wrenching tragedy. Michael was torn in the discovery of a horrific truth that the woman he once loved was guilty of a crime against humanity, and of personally betraying him. But in the course of trial, he also discovered Hannah’s most important secret, when he had brief flashes of memory---that she was illiterate, and could never read books nor write her name, and was visibly not capable of writing a damning report. So that he was suddenly caught up in the convolutions of being a man of law and upholding justice, and on the other hand having the power to speak out what he now knows, thereby helping Hannah reduce her prison sentence. He almost spoke of it, to his law professor, who quite perceptively suggested that what people feel or think isn't nearly as important as what they do.

As Michael's character is so layered---inflexible and deeply hurting at the same time, and probably even too young to see beyond the fact that he was shameful of his affair with Hannah and its unknown implications, he ended up keeping his secret and putting Hannah to life imprisonment. In fact, it can be drawn that he never talked about this dark part of his life to anyone, until very much later. After the court sentence was read, he sits on a train home devastated, retreating in the shadows of a dark corner.

The next second we see the same figure emerge from the shadows, but this time he is the middle-aged Michael (Ralph Fiennes) bearing sad eyes, and a face that mirrors years of emotional paralysis and the weight of guilt. He was divorced, and left his daughter to the care of his old mother. Alone in his new home, he goes through his old things, and makes voice recordings of a few books he used to read to Hannah. He sends them to her in prison. She fumbles with the player at first, but soon begins to enjoy listening to the stories, just like the old times. This started a new ritual between them, he was to send her many tapes afterwards, and Hannah, a stickler for cleanliness and order, would stack them neatly on the wall of her tiny prison cell.

Hannah, who was by now an aging woman, got up from the prison grounds one day and walked over nervously to the library to ask for a book, The Lady with a Dog by Chekov. She began to slowly decode the words that Michael was saying from the tape, and marked them on the book, initially encircling all of the “the”. Thus, began her self-education. Later she sends one-sentence letters to Michael, asking for more stories of adventure and romance. Michael never answered the letters. But he would continue to send tapes in parcels, for which she would eventually complete her education in reading and writing.

One day, Michael got a call from the prison ward telling him that Hannah was to be set free after 21 years because of her unblemished behavior in prison. He was the only known contact that they are aware of, as indeed there was no other character in the movie that was akin to her, nor was it a part of her that was explored in the story. Michael reluctantly visits her for the first time in prison after so many years. Their meeting was odd; he was perfunctory in his arrangement to get her a job and a place to stay. He was clearly mortified by seeing her again and thinking that he is thrown in the position where he is responsible for her amalgamation back to society, and back to his life. By this time, Hannah was a literate, and was reading a lot. She perceived the uneasiness in him, although once again, she was obstinate enough to not talk about it with him.

Later that week, she killed herself in her prison cell.

When Michael returned to get her, he discovered about her death. He was led to her cell and was given a tin box that contained a sum of money that Hannah had saved, and left instructions for him to hand it to the daughter of one of the holocaust victims. He also discovered writing on her wall, the first words she ever learned to write that were from the opening pages of Chekhov’s novel The Lady with a Dog.

He tried to redeem himself by visiting the woman in America, who wrote a book about their death march to Auschwitz. For the first time, he talked about his relationship with Hannah to her and how we was trying to make amends for all his guilt. With Hannah’s money, he proposed to set up a fund in her memory, to help fight illiteracy among the Nazi survivors. The movie ends back in Germany, with Michael and his daughter visiting Hannah’s grave, as he walks away with her, talking about the story that all started that rainy day in 1958.


The fact that the reader has characters that are deeply troubled, and are solely accountable for their failures, it is probably best to reason that man do reckon with their conscience many times in their lifetime, but the circumstances in their lives make them do things differently from what they believe in or feel. They run afoul of the behavior that is expected of them, thus putting their social or moral ethics in question, but it can’t necessarily mean they are evil.

The nuances of this film are too raw for me, there is nothing melodramatic, especially in the way Kate Winslet portrayed her character that was tough, and is perpetually troubled by something. You can see that she is not easy to be with; her face was fraught with sadness, a frown in the corners of her mouth, and almost a kind of physical fatigue that she’s had to deal with all her waking life. Yet, she is very strong and seems to be the commander of her life. She is not easily intimidated by emotions, but peels off a layer of herself once in while to make us construe that she is after all human. Forget about the fact that she was nude in many scenes, which reminds me that is how a married woman’s body is supposed to look like although she makes no bones about hiding it in any guise, and that is why I think that Kate Winslet is a gem.

But indeed, can one be part android and part human at the same time? Human in that she nursed a stranger in the streets and took him safely home, android in that she willingly gave her body away to a sexually charged fifteen year old boy with not much of a word. Human in that when she heard choir music, she was reduced to tears of joy, or was rapt in the story of the Odyssey. Android in that she unceremoniously left everything behind her one day, simply because she couldn’t be found dead in her dark secret, thus negating anything emotional that had been born out of her relationship with Michael. Human in that she was said to have been unusually kind to prisoners and had gathered a group Jewish women in prison every night to ask them to read out loud to her. But android, in that she sent the very same women to death row, because that was what she was ordered and paid to do.

She was living a life of contradiction, she sent herself to life in prison, and only because she was too proud and scared to be discovered an illiterate. Even towards the end of the film, she was caught up in her ambiguity, hanging herself in the cell because she could not stand having to inflict her unsolicited presence in Michael’s life. Once, while in the trial stand, she was questioned about her work as a prison guard. She reasoned that a new group of prisoners would come every time, and that there was barely enough room for everyone, so that they were given orders to send people to death camp in batches. A judge asked her why she even allowed this human atrocity to happen, there was a long awkward silence, and in her seemingly pure countenance, she answered “What would you have done”? To which, another long moment of silence ensued.


Yes, what would we have done indeed, when we are powerless to do something outside our abilities, when doing otherwise could have meant disrupting our little lives and standing up against people who are bigger than we are and who can take us over with malign abuses of their authority, mainly because they know they can do something that we can’t? Of course today, that is not a question anymore. But back then, she was illiterate, many were probably illiterate, and despite appearing to have no moral core, her question made a lot of sense. It leaves a question, too, how love in its unsullied form could be the same reason for people to betray, hurt, abandon, scar and shake up each other, just to be proper and ethical----while we all secretly come to grips with our collective guilt for something that we shouldn’t have done, but did; something we could have done, but did not---and how we can finally and completely learn to forgive everything.

My little princess is now three years old.
There are lots to say about her, but for now
A photo will have to do...

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The swiftness with which the days have gone by is out of my grasp lately that it is no longer possible to sit down and process the everyday things. Time just seems to come and fleet by, that before I even have the moment to reflect on something important and understand the underlying significance of that reflection so that I can then write about it at length, all is gone and suddenly it’s February of 2009. Sometimes, however, I feel that time is in a standstill, that no matter how I try to delude myself out it, I seem to be warped in it for a very long time and I am locked up in that peculiar capsule forever, that when I awake, all my efforts of trying to get on with the times and accomplish useful things as a human being turns out to be an absolutely thwarted endeavor.

Anyway, the upside of being warped into time, at least these past weeks, is that I had been able to finish reading a couple of books. One was The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho, a gift given to me by my officemate last Christmas; and the other one which I just put down, is a very old book I picked up from Booksale many moons ago and has sat gathering dust on the shelf, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers. I would like to talk a bit about the latter. A caveat though, by a bit I mean that I might be inclined to go off-track with my thoughts again, seeing that I am notoriously known to start off with crystal-clear head and wind up with various random inane things that I just mentally disintegrate into a drunken stupor.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a study of the lives of five different people, a deaf-mute John Singer, a strange girl Mick Kelly who is faced with the predicament of growing up and taking responsibilities early on while obsessively nursing a passion for music and its magnitude to which her whole young existence lies; a crass but well-read alcoholic Jake Blount, an idealistic black doctor Benedict Copeland who struggles to be respected in the white world and is frustrated by the helplessness and blind ignorance of his own people; and Biff Brannon, a restaurateur who has lost his love for his wife, but chooses to feel compassion for the deformed.

Although the novel focuses on John Singer and the effect he has on the other central characters, it was mostly through the girl Mick Kelly that the story is viewed and unfolds. These five characters lead lives that are often mired by feelings of isolation and loneliness, an inner torment to be understood and accepted for who they are and what they think, and the apparent lack of reciprocity for how they feel towards the people nearest to them, thus worsening their silent agony.


Without going into the finer details, these four people’s lives began to revolve around the deaf-mute John Singer, with whom they each had private interactions. John Singer is a kindly man who unselfishly shared his time to listen to each of them on their visits. His benevolence reached out beyond skin color at a time when colored Americans were discriminated against, as reflected by the black doctor Benedict Copeland who remembers him as the only white man who offered a light to his cigarette on a rainy night. The fact that he was deaf and therefore never learned to speak was overlooked by people, who were increasingly becoming curious of him, and on whom he unwittingly left an impression of being a mystic, someone short of a god who, while perpetually silent, harbors the strength and dignity they can trust their burdens on to. In him, they felt strangely comforted, and saw the chance to heal and liberate their souls, to speak freely of whatever was inside their convalescent hearts while being aware that he does not hear. It was if his silence was answer enough to all their questions.

The altruistic way with which he shared his friendship with them, however, concealed the fact that he was just an ordinary man, a man who misses a dear friend locked up in a mental asylum. He tried to visit him on a few occasions, at one time desperately thinking that he could turn his back from the friends he had begun to like and enjoy, if only to be able to live with Antonapolous in that odd sanctuary.

The dear friend he cared so truly about was in fact a slothy Greek deaf-mute he had lived with in a flat for ten years. At the beginning of the novel, everything seemed roses between them, two friends walking hand in hand, doing things together each single day, and getting by in the evenings with simple things like playing chess or going to the movies. Then Antonopoulos begins to act strangely after falling ill, often appearing dirty and disheveled, deliberately stealing food and things, hitting at people he didn’t like in the streets, and acting lewdly in public, that he was always to be found in the town court for the many infringements he had done. John Singer was always there to redeem him, even when his savings had been used up to settle and keep his friend out of jail. Eventually, against Singer’s wishes, Antonopoulos was committed to a mental asylum by a distant cousin.


It was the start of great distress and loneliness for Singer, who felt a void in his life when his friend had gone. But Antonopolous was never interested in giving back the kindness shown to him. However, because of his unremitting love for his friend, John Singer tried to ignore the bad things, and only remembered the good things in him, which were in truth, very few and far in between. The next time he tried to see Antonopoulos in the asylum, John Singer learned that his friend had died of an illness. He went home despondent, and killed himself.

His tragedy bore different circumstances on the friends he left behind. The black doctor had to give up his profession as he spent his remaining days suffering tuberculosis in the care of the very same people whose ignorance he abhorred, disillusioned of his failure to make a change. The alcoholic Blount left the town in hope to meet someone who would be willing to sit through his outbursts again, much like the deaf-mute did. Biff Brannon lost his wife to a fatal surgery , had slowly began to find himself, and get in touch with his unrealized passions, while remaining to be a quiet and astute observer of the things that go around his world, or at least his cafe. Mick Kelly finds a measure of peace and hope in that she is resolved to achieve things for herself and her family, keeping the music within her inner world, and sharing whatever was left of the selfless desire to be that was unsuspectingly imparted to her by the dead John Singer.

A peculiar fascination about human nature had lingered on me long after I put it down. I am concerned in the central theme that is about the desolation we each feel in our hearts, especially when we try to be understood and accepted, but are not. That others, even the ones we love the most, would not always share the same fervor we have in our hearts and that we are like square pegs to their circles. We trudge the earth, among a sea of souls who are themselves wandering far and wide, to be able to find, or hunt, for that familiarity we can clench close to our hearts and forever latch on to. Thus, the heart is a lonely hunter. But what if it's suddenly gone or taken away from us?

I believe this is when we turn to divine intervention. Silence becomes our earnest friend and companion, when words are not spoken to affirm what we think. Sometimes, it's a fallen leaf, or a whiff of air, or intimation of music, or a gentle smile from a little child that come to answer us in our deepest human longings. I was touched by the scene where Mick Kelly, hiding among the bushes in a neighbor’s yard one night, listened to the radio and heard Beethoven for the first time. Being a non-believer, she had an epiphany, suddenly convinced that indeed there is a God who can create such beauty that can well up her eyes with tears and melt her young, volatile heart.

My Baguio Chronicles - 1

645 am. Arrived Baguio.

The kids were able to sleep on the six hour bus trip but husband and I had hardly been able to relax, what with him trying to check on us every then and now, to my obvious annoyance, as he keeps getting up and walking the isle, asking if we were okay. Every time that he did, the other passengers would let out a dagger look, or something that sounded like a grunt…..or maybe it was just me getting too self-conscious. It would have done me much better if he had held on to one of the kids, because I was cramped in the two-seater with all bits and pieces of our luggage but both children physically cling on to me for dear life, as if all sense of safety is lost on them, were they with someone else, in these temporary but rough conditions. This was the first time that we will travel this far, and I being the mother, know how difficult it was for the kids to settle down where comfort is in short supply. However, it amazed me how easily and fast they could fall asleep. All I could manage to do after that is put Sam in front of me and try to catch a few minutes of rest, while she was beginning to fall deep into slumber and was now lording it over sleepyland with her loud snoring. That little girl, she terrifies me with her sound sometimes...

After a couple of stops, and leaning over to check where we were, six hours had gone by, and I caught the first light of morning. Marcos highway was covered in fog as our bus climbed uphill on the zigzag road. It felt like an endless trek, and the higher we went, the thicker the fog seemed to grow. In spite of the bus driver meandering the roads with such confidence, my fear started to seep in again, unfortunately at a time when I had wanted to use the last few minutes of our trip to catch some shuteye before we hurtle ourselves off the bus . I felt terribly tired from my daughter’s weight, but my mind was relentlessly creating scenarios of us falling of the cliff accidentally and me waking up to find out that I have lost a limb, or worse, a life or lives other than mine. So that in the course of all that horrible mental fumbling, I never had the opportunity to rest for a second more. It was such a relief however, that finally we reached a plateau, and a "Welcome to Baguio" sign told me that my worries were now pointless….

We arrived at the Teacher’s Camp. The lady I talked to on the phone a day earlier wasn’t available, so the night guy, offered to deposit our things at the reception, and told us that we could get some breakfast and come back in half an hour. It was drizzling outside, but the cool air, the log cabins, the fresh smell of pine trees, and the faint morning light was such to behold, that I could only remember it in one of those dreams I’ve had way back in years, and really it would be strange if I got carried away into a trance so early in the day, but I rather tried to soak in it and felt humbled at the beauty, unmindful of the fact that all this has cost me a precious night of sleep. My body wasn’t caving yet anyway, so why the fuss. I decided to take out my camera and do some snapping. I had made a mental reminder to myself back in Manila, that getting to Baguio would be a perfect time for me to hone my skills with my new DSLR, a gadget which I would like to proudly blabber about at a later time. When finally, I had enough photos to warn me that we still had two full days left for photographing, I stopped and we took the first cab down, or rather up, the street. One thing, I would most certainly promote about this place, is that the taxi drivers are the most respectful, honest, and cool drivers one could ever ask for. For a moment there, you stop being wary of being robbed off of your precious hundreds, and they can cruise you to your destination like a breeze. Anyway, we were told by our driver that we were lucky to be up there at such a time when it was the real “cold” season. He did not warn us, however, that it was going to be biting cold at night, and we would be literally freezing our asses off in bed. We were thrilled nonetheless at the fact that we had made a good decision to come here after the holidays and experience the real “cold”. Down south, it would have been nippy too, but not like this one, that stings your face and gives you the unqualified pleasure of knowing you’re way above the sea level, and pretty much on top of the world…..

To be continued….

Knock, knock!

Hey, it's me, do you still remember? It's been a long journey, and I had wanted to come back sooner. But I got sidetracked, by different things, at different times that I have somehow lost my way... But I tell you, what is important is I am home, well and alive, and it was all worth to get back here with much hope that I can begin to tell you all about it----the people I've met, the places I've been, the emotions I've experienced, and the lessons I've learned.

So sit back there, while I click my tongue and wink my eye....
and I'll be back shortly.

Starting Today

Lately , I have begun to organize my office files. In the last few weeks of 2007, I got overridden by some chaotic plague in my life that there was hardly any chance to sit down and put things in their proper places. Over the weekend, I will have to be rid of many others at home, those which I have indiscriminately tossed inside bags or unlabeled envelopes, pieces of paper torn from something and on which are scribbled random numbers or words that now have absolutely no meaning to me, but which I had snuck in obscure corners anyhow, hoping that I would have to sort them out one day but obviously never got round to doing so, seeing that it’s a colossal waste of time having to go through each of them and determine their importance to my future. Blech…

Now that I have piles and piles of notes that contain different things or memories, I can’t seem to begin cataloging them – are they stuff that bother me or delight me? I am not a generally messy person, but this is one aspect of myself that I can’t seem to get to the bottom of, why I buy diaries, organizers or notepads, every so often, but why I prefer to scribble somewhere else, at random moments, knowing that I am bound to lose it immediately soon after.

Be that as it may, this year, my penultimate goal in life is to Simplify. Not only on the physical things that I am embattled with, but also the events or milestones of my life in the last year that are in a completely cluttered state of my mind at this point. It seems that in the past few months, everything has come to be one big blur or indefinable grey mass before me, like a dream or recollection that is so vague but stays close to the edge of my consciousness that while I try to deny its existence, I know nonetheless that it is there. I wish I could totally exonerate it off my memory, or begin to file them into their respective folders and subfolders. Here for instance in my January folder, I could write daughter, or son, or husband and what it was that took place in their lives that was of significance, or concerned me somehow. Or maybe in December, what was it that I had tried to accomplish and planned about, but then forgot in the months that were leading up to it, as something else pressed on and unexpectedly? But digressed, I have. I can’t even answer that one hypothetically.

I believe that something must be done with my memory, and the way I lead my life. Work, too much of it, or too little of it, and the clumsy way I’ve sometimes handled my affairs as a mother, or just generally as a person who breathes, have considerably taken much of the time that I ought to be spending in much nobler pursuits ---like what, it’s not clear to me. Maybe reading a great book again, or learning languages, or getting my daughter to understand a poem, I don’t know. I just know that there are so much more in life than the daily office grind, or shopping for groceries, or gossiping about the new neighbors, or getting new prescription glasses. I just know that I would rather worry about not being able to listen to this awesome musical show in the weekend than make sure the water bill gets paid on time. I am such an oddball I know, but those are the things that make more sense in what life really is to me.

Well, if only I can do something with that life simplification/organization thing and start somewhere, maybe today, or now that it’s undeniably 2008, I am pretty sure that both my domestic and whimsical lives (you know, feeding my young to dinner, and taking off to a fancy flight of imagination in the same breath), would go just fine and dandy…..

Oh to be away....

....From life, for a little while, the life that I have known to have been fawning over like a hapless slave-sometimes at work, and belatedly of children growing under my anxious but overwrought shoulders. One day in October, with my children not far out from my sight, I got to sit on the beach, basking in the tangible beauty of the world, realizing how strange the sand filling up between my toes felt, but enjoying it nonetheless, the yonder horizon slowly turning into different gradations of blue as it crawls towards me, the whiff of the salt in the breeze, stretches of powdery white earth, the sun fiercely hitting my skin, children hanging on to their colorful life rings and letting out screams of excitement, their mommies and daddies frolicking in the water like eager but bashful lovers, marine life silently spawning under the foams of waves as the people swim carelessly above, lonely seabirds trotting on the breakers like nothing else exists for them but the vast sea, small red bancas plying every then and now, men bronzed from the sun dragging their day's catch in nets, and many many other wonderful things besides, that I watch with half-closed eyes and a wistful heart. I think that I could live here forever....

my filipina thoughts

I found by chance a website that encourages Filipinos to write positive things about the Filipina on the internet, in hope of bringing “relevant results to search engines and topple those that exploit the (word) Filipina”. I feel compelled to chip in, and say something, even though as one stumbles upon this blog, he’d be hard-pressed to discover that I am NOT into making any pertinent social commentaries or spewing off happy mantras for the collective good, much less, lifting a finger to enlighten my own befuddled self. If at all, he might recognize that he has largely snuck into a lemony snickett world, a cloudy sphere of juvenile, foolish thoughts, trapped inside the brain of a woman going through midlife crises. Or something.

At any rate, my being filipina in the face of all these, makes me rather unique, if a little peculiar. I don’t fully comprehend it. Blogging , for instance, has made me discover that there are quite a number of women from the Philippines who are actively making forays into wider territories, and are creating beautiful impressions to many, from their thoughts and knack to assimilate with other far-flung cultures. But on the other hand, there have been some who are sadly misunderstood. The saying now goes, anonymity breeds…..animosity? I am not sure. I am just saying….

But what is to be Filipina? For the longest time, we are generally perceived to be women who conform and obey, who meekly say yes on many occasions, even when we don’t have to, or don’t mean to. And let’s face it, there is a grain of truth to it. I can’t fault the look of amazement, or sometimes incredulity, in the eyes of others who have not fully understood why we do it so, or of what holds us back from asserting our right on things. It’s not that we don’t have a choice, and I can most certainly say that it is not being stupid, nor for lack of a better judgment. Believe me, I’ve been there and I can’t be gullible at all. I think that it well may be a case of having too much respect for elders or authorities, a plain sense of propriety that we have inadvertently practiced all of our waking lives. We have been born to it. And that is not a bad thing. It’s just that it seems everywhere we go, we aim to please. Please others, older or younger, with blind worship---unfortunately much to our ruination. We value harmony in our little rustic world, much as we do in the big world, that calls us a third world, a world that has gone a bit haywire in the age of internet and overblown-grown egos. We are often seen as easy preys to the supercilious regard of others, or even of our own.

Well all I can say is, damnation! Why don’t we start getting crazy? Forget about being cinderellas or some weak pushover damsels, and put on our ruby slippers like Dorothy who ran away from Kansas did? We should embark on our own giddy adventures or misadventures, and leave all narrow thoughts behind. This is the time of the weirdest imaginations and epic surprises, wherever we are in the world wide web, so that we should not be afraid to commit some unforgivable faux pas or make absolute fools of ourselves. Why, others do every it five seconds, methinks! We should write our thoughts boldly, and speak more loudly of what we feel! We should laugh at the funnies, and bawl over sad dreadful b-movies, and not apologize for it! We should sing our hearts out in karaokes, hitch up our skirts, and dance in bayles with our corniest moves! We should get off our horses, and stop caring for once!

And then when we had our fill, when we have soaked in all that craziness and simple exuberance that makes us uniquely and truly Filipina, we should spruce ourselves up, smooth our hairs back, and mind our proper manners once again. The things we are proud to be of---the choices we make to overcome our own obstacles, the character that endear us to the appreciative few, in spite of the prejudiced lot--are that which we should continue to espouse and do, or write about. Maybe not always in this blog, but in a better place, so that we will ultimately read “Filipina” with something affirmative and good about, in google-s.

Somehow, by writing all this I seem to be contradicting myself. I shiver at my momentary uproar. As I said, I can’t often be trusted with positive things or thoughts …..

So, I’ll pretend I never said.

Ne Me Quitte Pas

One of the saddest and most beautiful songs I’ve heard is Ne Me Quitte Pas (Don’t Leave Me). It was originally written by Jacques Brel, a Belgian French-speaking singer-songwriter who passed away in the 70’s. I have heard this sung by someone that I admire profoundly--Nina Simone, the one who refused to be called anything--but was everything a goddess of soul is, and all else that spelled excellent, as her voice and piano skills were. Nina was an American but embraced France as her final abode, much like Jacques Brel did. Although I remain largely clueless about France, I must admit that I love almost everything french---the cinema, the actors, the fashion alright, the food, the music, the gritty attitude, and especially the language. Here is an incredible video of the song done by Helene Segara in a touching duet with a 3d hologram of Jacques Brel. Way below are the french lyrics and engligh translation, sort of, of the song:

Ne me quitte pas -
Uploaded by jsuismoi

Ne me quitte pas
Il faut oublier
Tout peut s'oublier
Qui s'enfuit deja
Oublier le temps
Des malentendus
Et le temps perdu
A savoir
Oublier ces heures
Qui tuaient parfois
A coups de pourquoi
Le coeur du bonheur
Ne me quitte pas.

Moi je t'offrirai
Des perles de pluie
Venues de pays
Ou il ne pleut pas
Je creus'rai la terre
Jusqu' apres ma mort
Pour couvrir ton corps
D'or et de lumiere;
Je f'rai un domaine
Ou l'amour s 'ra roi
Ou l'amour s' ra loi
ou tu serais reine

Ne me quitte pas..

_______

don't leave me
it is neccesary to forget
everything you need to forget
that is already over
forget the times
of the misunderstandings,
the lost time
you need to know how
forget the hours
that sometimes kill
the reasons why
the heart is full of joy

do not leave me.

i offer you
pearls of rain
coming from countries
where it never rains
i will cross the world
until after my death
for to cover your body
with gold and bright light.
i will give you a kingdom
where Love will be king
where Love will be the law
where you will be queen….

do not leave me.

ho-hums

There's nothing much to say today, and as usual I've been suffering what one blogger calls a blogorrhea. So off I go with my rumbling. Our director has been around for a couple of days now, spending the whole time in the office, doing important business over phone and net----the whole nine yards---- except make small attempts to talk to us. Sure, we had been privileged to lunch out at hotel mezzanines of late with him, but back at grind time, there are the usual furtive glances, and tiptoeing, a funny stance that all of us, rank and file, are guilty of taking when the big guns are around. I don't remember for the life of me why we do it anyway. I mean, our bosses, considering that they are foreigners, are not really the kind who would give a dope as to how we conduct our business around the office. Outside of it, we are as equal to them as we damn please think we are, except that they foot the bill, and we reciprocate with all-encompassing gratitude. They are as natural as can be, but it seems that we are the ones who balk at the idea of behaving as we do when left among ourselves. And, as if that is not enough, we discuss things behind their back, belaboring on the minutest details of the time they were in our presence.

Are we that of small minds, after all?

nothing thoughts

It’s almost like waking up from a long dream, this business of motherhood. When I gave birth to my son, I never expected to feel such pain and distress, although I was fully anesthetized during his delivery. It would not do even that I had people around me, especially my husband, willing to help ease whatever it was that discomfited me. There was just an overwhelming amount of physical hurt that my body was trying to bear up, and I sometimes found myself crying and gnashing my teeth in angry silence. But slowly, everything seemed to alleviate.

One day, I found myself getting much stronger and ready to appreciate life again. The years that followed with our little baby seemed to hover and pass before our eyes. It felt like I was in a sweet limbo, a dream of thousand nights when I’ve cradled him in my arms, fed him close to my body until he is sated over, and ready to fall into an oblivious slumber again. Soft hushed-up moments of being with him, when all I could hear was his impassioned breathing, and the gradual struggle of the body for nourishment and life.

I have attached a great importance to these instances. Of course, there too, were those fine qualities that a mother would most readily admire and esteem about in her offspring. I smiled and closed my eyes at the beauty of it, an emotional bliss that lulled me into a long almost interminable sleep, recreating scenes in my heart, with deadened intensity, like a mime or a silent movie, interrupted every then and now by only the faintest mewling, but never really quite remembering the terrible physical suffering once attached to it.

Many years and sleep nights later, another day breaks with such zealous light and a jolting sense of something raw. I stir from all the softness, and welcome a new, harsh reality. A baby girl. Came nine months of the same anxiety and discomfort, all over again, or maybe even worse. I cannot begin to say how bad it was, as I never tried to look at it that way. But the pain that I thought I’ve most certainly forgotten, well, it was still there to remind me after all.

Of how it is to be human, and to relinquish fear.

It's been five years since, and today I am rearing up a wonderful daughter and son who would eventually cast a shadow over those months that I’ve had to endure. Presently, a long restful sleep will do me good, far from being with child.

Gabriel is almost five and has gone away to school. He asks never-ending questions of everything he sees, why or how they came to be. He watches Discovery Channel and talks about caves and mummies. It scares me that we don’t have the answers to all his curiosity, but we will go to lengths for his learning, while we are around to guide him. He exhibits an odd temperament that my husband says screams of Me. Sure enough, I am slowly recognizing myself in the many things he does, in the way he sharply looks sideways with a pout when asked to repeat what he said. My impatience. It tells me to check on myself, lest he grows up to be as dark-minded as his mother .

On the other hand, is a sunny girl, Sophia. Always going about with much gaiety, like her father. Her little childish laughter resonates around the house, it would be a shame not to smile about it, if at least in secret. Sometimes, she exhausts me, with her boundless energy, but never in a way, that I would give up enjoying her smarts or unreserved affection. Laughter should be indispensable in a home, shouldn't it? And I would like my children to always laugh, and guffaw if they had to, for what it's worth.

Many days I wake up with a worrying fit, of how my children will fare, of how we can make it better for both of them. It burns a hole in my head, and pushes me to fight for it. But other mornings, I become easy, feeling I can leave it all up to fate, as I stir and become aware of them nearby. All I can just say, is that life is odd, and phenomenal.

Lost In Translation

Last night was probably the fourth time I’ve seen the movie, and yet I never grow tired of it. Bill Murray has such impeccable comic timing and wry mockery on this you can’t help but laugh about it. I do not at all find this movie an affront on the Japanese race as other pedants may claim. For me, it is a bird’s eye view of someone who has stayed briefly in the country, seen a bit of things, tasted a small part of its culture, but has never really understood what it embodies. If it was set in my country and had portrayed some of our idiosyncrasies, I might have initially been offended too. But then I would think, that is how outsiders see us, and it can be pretty amusing in the end. Lucky for us who have been brought out to a wider audience, unlucky for them who saw only too little to comprehend what it’s all about.

However, what I remember more deeply, and probably more importantly about this film is life’s tragedy and the complexities of human relationships. The emptiness, the white nights, the feeling of displacement that both the central characters in this movie feel, the need for companionship, and on a general scale, the mechanized way that we conform with what is proper, as opposed to what we honestly want. These emotions are present in, and I think equalizes us humans, regardless of our age, social stature, or mental maturity. There comes indeed a point where no measure of material wealth or gained wisdom is sufficient to make us understand why life is empty and without a meaningful purpose, and that we are oddly lost in the translation of the very obvious things—love, sadness, joy, family, ourselves .

In the story, two Americans met in a lobby of a posh hotel. Charlotte (the beautiful Scarlett Johannson), a philosophy graduate and wife to a rather neglectful celebrity photographer on assignment, and an aging actor Bob Harris (Bill Murray’s character), a movie star nearing the end of his career and who has come to work on a whiskey commercial . After a few brief innocent encounters, Charlotte and Bob began to share feelings of their odd transitory life in Japan, the way that they are trapped in their marriages, and the uncertainties of their individual future lives. They became increasingly close as they spent more time together fleetingly, in the Tokyo region of Japan which provided the interesting backdrop, where they roamed the streets, sushi bars, bonsai gardens, arcades and karaokes—singly, or both-- apart from the married lives they were excruciatingly trying to cope with. On the eve of Bob’s departure, Charlotte finds him with another woman in his room, and there seemed to be a falling out between them. Not soon afterwards, they see each other in a hotel lobby and make up, and express how they would miss the other when one has gone. When finally they had to say goodbye the next day, the tension of wanting to be physically closer, or be able to say something but could not, of trying not to linger with the dizzying feeling of, maybe love, or longing, kept me on the edge of my seat. Yes, I too, am an incurable romantic.

The final scene is where Bob sits in the car on the way to fly back home, and he sees Charlotte in the crowd. He motions the chauffeur to stop and he runs to find the girl. He calls to her, and she turns to see him. They look each other in the eyes, for how long I cannot care enough to complain, they hug and he whispers something to her ear, and then they kiss. So much for all the tension. I can only mutter…sweet jesus….. And then a whiff of air blows and gets them back to their senses, with a certain feeling of resolve, evident in the smile on both their faces as they again part and go each other’s ways. Which left me thinking, what did he say to her? And kept me guessing--about the future, if any, of their ambiguous relationship.

I had to turn to wikipedia for a bit of enlightment, or gossip. There were many speculations about what Bob whispered to the girl’s ear. It was said that Bill Murray did it impromptu, not part of the script, and that he would not repeat what he said, in the interviews later. However, some nosy individuals might have gone the extra mile and used a device to make out the audio, and it is very likely that he had said “I love you. Don't forget to always tell the truth…”.

Well, whatever, we could always make up our own lines to our satisfaction.

But then, I am left vague in the mind and asking questions. Are encounters like these, where we find a kindred and share a mutual feeling of connection, in a disconnected world, meant to be a catalyst, a door at the end of a dark passage where we can finally shed off all our emotional layers and walk at a definitive moment where there is a blinding light, a cure to all our emotional ills, to all our manic worries, and all our interminable sadness, thus declaring our life’s denouement?

Or we resign ourselves, back to what is real and expected, to what is asked of us, but to where we can deal with things and relationships a little braver and stronger, and come to grips with the same hell all over again?

Life's Stills

Early this year, I had begun to get a little serious into my new hobby—photography. I had initial doubts as to how long I would nourish this newfound skill, as in the past I have had several pre-occupations that I really enjoyed at first, and eventually found my interest waning and getting measly for. There was drawing, calligraphy, cross stitch, beading—things that happily manifest how sedentary is the lifestyle I live. True enough, I’ve never been into sports, or something that involves sweating off or showing my physical prowess. I remember that back in school, I had always been a failure at try-outs and would cower at any sports that involved balls. I was never any good and, as a matter of saying, didn’t have the balls for it. In deference to these shortcomings however, I read a lot, gluttonously I may add, that I eventually forgot what I was supposed to be missing out in the field. And so it came to be that as I grew older, I pretty much stopped caring about things where I would suck, while other people might excel in; and instead put a high personal premium on the arts---and many of its forms. There was music, dance (which is something that, I am sad to note, never loved me back), books, poetry, painting, needlework, etc etc. It was a happy experience and indulgence, a love affair which I carry on up until this day. And now, there’s photography.

As I have written in this blog earlier, it was my husband who bought me my first digital camera. A point and shoot, no-frills Olympus that allows me to take as many pictures as my one gigabyte card would allow. It is not anything that I would call an “equipment”, but it sure does work and I do appreciate owning it. With it I am able to take photos of my little children, of flowers, of the skies, of myself, of people whose selves sometimes refuse to be taken of. In every photograph I take, in those little tiny frames of a few million resolutions, a thousand memories are frozen and committed into my family’s emotional bank. Walks in the park, the growing up months, the one where he was looking coyly at nothing, or the one where the sun gleamed on her baby hair…

I took lots and lots of photos and had fun looking at them, showed the kids off to the old folks and the relations. But then, I found out that I needed not stop there. My husband encouraged me to put up my photos, in a sharing site like Flickr. This is where I discovered people who shared the same interest and passion in photography, and who eventually became my virtual friends. I traipsed around and saw many of their wonderful photos, images that anyone in any part of the globe would be looking at with lustful eyes and admiration, or maybe even a bit of technical judgment. But flickr is in fact rather kind to greenhorns like me. So far, no one has been verbally abrasive or nit-picking on my photos, as far as the comments in my photostream go. But neither have I been getting into raptures over little praises, even though I think that most of us need to pat each other’s backs a little sometimes, as if to say we can do better and better. My thoughts are I should be able to get a better grasp of what makes a good photograph—subject, light, composition, the rudiments, and more importantly, the story that it conveys. In the light of my learning those things, and I’ll whisper this confidentially for now, I want to be PRO.

But as they say, one tiny baby step at a time.

I’ll get there.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

reflections

I’ve been working nearly 8 years with the same company, and I am still the same subservient slave that I was since the day that I got here. I am working with people who I feel don’t deserve where they are, and maybe I don't deserve to be where I am anyhow, but one person in particular has become such a clever ass that he gets his way with everyone, beats the shite out of me every time, treats me and everybody else like shite, not all the time but majorly, and there he is enjoying what he could squeeze out of the firm, before our very eyes. And the rest of us are like hostages in a movie, trying to be jolly good and obedient, all shackled up to a tree, unable to move, fear gripping us all over, us helplessly watching our very own corporate ghosts repeatedly vandalized, threatened and trampled upon---as we wait only for our caped heroes to rescue us from the eventual throes of morbid death. The horror and the pathos of it.

But one might ask, how come I never moved out and moved on, so then I wouldn’t be this ornery middled-aged woman complaining about things, and instead be climbing up the corporate ladder, dressing up to the nines, driving a town car around with cappuccino in one hand, and the steering wheel on the other, while flicking her cigarette out the window with her perfectly chiseled blood-red manicured nails, and dreaming up big dreams for herself? Yes indeed, whatever happened to me all these years? Last time I checked, I had high hopes and a promising future. But then I got kids and I got grounded here. For life. Today, I got split-ends on my hair and a plain, pallid face full of worry lines. I have no regrets about it really, and I am absolutely sure now that I have wanted this. But there are buts and ifs that egg me on to consider how and why everything stopped there. Or so it seemed. Well, one would wisely say, it’s all about choices, my poor dear. And I can’t agree more.

But I never thought myself a poor dear. Deep inside me I know that I have something that I can hold on to as my strength, or my redeeming virtue. But somehow I am not one to really wallow on them, or to publicize my accomplishments. I smile inside when I do believe I have done the right thing, but always—and I do not know how I’ve managed to go about life with this---I always fear that exulting too highly or openly on what I have done might make me fail twice as much. In my mind, I am sometimes guilty of condescension towards other people, that whatever they are proudly blabbering about today is archaic to me, I have been there, done that, read that, heard that. Yet, I can never be too rude to tell them off. And that is why in the course of my silence and gentle acquiescence, I am being the one construed as old-fashioned, outmoded, or maybe even dumb? Ouch. But that’s my sad reality. I only blame myself and nobody else. Because really, life goes around and we can't mope around hoping that change will take us under its wings. I am so very well aware of that.

I have a small worlds where I can express my creativity, and reel in it without having to make an excuse of who I am. However the idea of putting myself up or my abilities for sale is still new to me. Yes, even at this age my self-confidence is very elementary. Many times I have met people who tell me great things about myself, and I do believe in them. The candidness of their appreciation towards me is really quite embarrassing at times for me. I know I do deserve it. But, I hate press releases. My main assumption is that, there is always someone better, greater, more than what I am. And goodness, how I clap my heart out when I find out about something that is far greater, that gives me joy, because I know that I can strive higher. Maybe that is what keeps me grounded. Or untrusting? It may be, it seems to always be. However, for once, I want to learn how to take it graciously. Without excusing my candor. Without caring how I would look, as I jump around like a little girl shouting at the top of my lungs “ I am good, I am good!”…

colors.

The one time I had experienced discrimination in life was when I had a relationship with a foreign man. I met him when I was a little orphan girl back in the province. My friends and I were doing volunteer work one hot summer for an orphanage near my home, and there were a bunch of blokes from australia who came over to build classrooms in poor communities, under the auspices of apex, a civic club probably equivalent to our jaycees. Not having had any close brush with people of a different skin color, the girls and I, naturally couldn’t contain our curiosity with the white people. You know how in your naïve mind you generalize people with white skin color as americans? It wasn’t a few times that I heard an exchange of hey joes with the whites and the local people who looked permanently wide-eyed, agape, or an O forming on their lips.

I mean could you tell the nationalities anyway, when you are young, or even old enough, never been outside your province, and already half-condemned to a life of veiled realism, and obscurity? It was only many years afterwards that it sunk in, that australia is in fact, not anywhere near america, but many worlds apart. I wonder how the aussies felt at the allusion then, but I am sure they did not mind a lot. I think it was enough that people had regarded them with such interest, as though there were aliens from outer space, with completely curious eye colors, hair colors, skin colors, and an absolutely indiscernible speaking tongue.

There was a bunch of them from different walks of life –doctors, engineers, teachers. They traveled and came here together as builders with their own tools and a lot of eagerness to meet people and to immerse themselves, however briefly, in a rather bewildering culture that is ours. As volunteers, we girls taught catechism subjects to the little orphans for the length of summer. Since the classrooms were being built, we held these short classes under the trees. Working in rather close proximity and a warm atmosphere with them, the girls I was with had started to inch their way to becoming friends with most of the men. But I had remained quiet, unrelenting, timid and shy.I don’t remember ever once having talked with any one of them as I was afraid that their words would be incomprehensible to me, or worse, I would be caught tongue-tied when spoken to, and end up looking like a total fool. Nonetheless, their project and the summer came to a close. We were employed to plan a culmination program when they, the apec guys, would turn over the classrooms to the nuns who were running the place. The event went well. But before everyone could turn to leave, there was an exchange of addresses, and tokens to give and receive. The girls were ecstatic, but I could only manage to say hello and goodbye to one guy, and in fact had someone give me a rather unpleasant elbow on the rib so I could trade addresses with him. Thus ended my summer when I was fifteen. I put everything behind me as school begged in.

Little did I know that the guy would figure mainly in my single life.

He sent me his first letter the moment he got back home and settled in. He wrote from when I was fifteen until I was already working here in Manila a decade later. In every ten letters he wrote, I answered one. I’d moved to different places, but he always managed to seek me out. He wrote endlessly about his life, and even though I volunteered very little information of myself and was on the brink of writing him off, he still wrote. Then one day he came again and I met him. And as he had always hoped, we were now both sitting across the same table, face to face, smiling, he much older, and I all grown up and a woman. And there we were, exchanging pleasantries and talking about our respective lives. It was the first time everything he wrote all those years really made sense to me. Things got better and better, and when I woke up from all the pleasantness and reverie, I realized that we were a couple.

Suddenly we were doing things together, planning trips together, and I was spending my weekends with him up the cold north. The six-hour bus trips I had to endure on the way up and back down felt nothing when I had only held on to the excitement of being with him again. In other words, it was nice and fuzzy feeling to be with someone who cared a lot for you, and vice versa. Then I started meeting his friends. They were all rather pleasant and good people, but as I was an insufferably timid person, I didn’t always get to advance my friendships with them, not without some prodding from him. Now that I think about it, I think it’s really me. But you know that when you’re trying not to be overly sensitive about things, you feel worse about it ? That unbeknownst to your partner, you are ill at ease with the crowd he is with, but still you try to meld in, because it is what pleases him?

I think he wouldn't have known about how I felt, because I never told him so. But in one or two instances, I think that I could not anymore close off my eyes and say it was pure coincidence, or I was deliberately trying to make a poor excuse of my sorry prevaricating self. I felt that I was being looked down upon, and regarded with different eyes because I was with someone whose skin color was different from mine. Is it bigotry? I sure hope not.

But there were others still. An incident when I overheard a conversation between a hotel owner and our common friend who called to book us but was asked if I was “dirty”, and she was assured that I wasn’t. And another time when we had to stay overnight at his friend’s house, and there were looks that doubted who I was and from whence I came, or maybe, what I was doing with a white man. But nothing could have been more hurtful than having to be invited at an intimate party of predominantly white, in fact I was the only brown girl in the crowd. I was told a few days then, the owner has lost her diamond ring that night, was looking all around the next day, saying that there only a “few” people in the party---but found it down the kitchen sink soon afterwards. I mean, what??? What did I have to be told about that for? I had to take a careful look at myself in the mirror once and ask… Did I dress like a slut? Certainly not!!! Did I talk like a trashy bitch? As far as I know, I had only been most polite and careful with my words. Do I look like someone who would steal?? Now, this really enraged me inside. Because I had never ever found myself, nor an infinitesimal fraction of who I am, having been interested in another’s possession and coveted it to want to steal it. Not me. Not in this lifetime. And that is why I changed towards him, or them, all for the worst of it, or maybe for the better of it. I don’t know. He was still full of candor and childish naiveté, or maybe a warped mind, until the day we said goodbye.

That is not really why we ended our four-year relationship though, but sad as it is, I recount those incidents now with a slight regret, of why I never really rose up to it and said something, why I evaded having to show umbrage and perhaps teach them a lesson about condescension and arrogance. Why I always believe that people are good, or not so bad as they are and that they deserve some kind of chance and redemption….But why I always end up hurting, even when I thought the ball had already been bouncing the right way.

swig

Woke up this morning with a bang in my head, and a thump in my stomach. I spent the better part of the bad night getting intoxicated at east 21, while putting on my best behavior towards our work colleagues from abroad. Obviously, somewhere in between two shots of tequila and a couple glasses of whiskey, my aim to be prim and dignified somewhat fell apart. Drinking has been part of a social function where my work is concerned, as that’s where everybody seems to gravitate after a particularly long dinner and lots of senseless conversation with people you only get to meet every three years or so. Earlier that night at dinner, the boss came over to each of the girls, and there’s not a good many, to talk us sweetly into joining the boys for a few swigs afterwards. It’s been several years since we have done anything like this, so I felt that I couldn’t say no. Neither could Jo.

I remember all those years back when some, or rather most of us, were still single, that drinking seemed an essential part of our work life. There’d be days in a week when we would look forward to settling down comfortably at our nook in the Bronx, and our favorite waitresses would be waiting to serve us with our favorite frizzies. Just chilling out, singing ourselves senseless at the karaoke, making little conversations about mostly nothing….it was the quintessential single loser’s life. Yet, good in a way. But after we all got married, the habit seemed to naturally drift away, as everyone, too, drifted apart. The smoking went, the incorrigible flirtings went, and so did the love for liquor. I for one, never really tried to look back, as I have no good reason to be proud of, whilst I was under the influence. There was never a time that I managed to stay sane and sensible, as I have never been accustomed to drinking an iota more than what I am supposed to.

Last night was not an exception either, for me whose relationship with alcohol is not casual and light, like having a quick puff of cigarette outside and flicking it gingerly with the finger, and after a few more, I get done and back to my routine. So anyway, as I have obliged our visitors, I started out with a light beer. I never intended to drink any more of it at first. I had my heart fixed on just sitting silently in my corner and watching the loud band playing, not really keen on getting into tête-à-tête or feigning to want one, with the boys or the girl. The officemate next to me discussed about getting cocktails next. To be honest, I’ve never been socially educated about bar drinks, the margaritas and daikiris are greek to me, but I am willing to imbibe anything to my limits, and be acquainted with it every then and now. So, it is with a twist of irony that we settled in ordering a concoction named “sex in the beach”. This was after all a night of fun and team building, and I was not worried about raised eyebrows or wry admonitions. Not when I absolutely aimed not to get wasted.

But before the “sex” could come, the boss started passing glasses around, something on the rocks, and he was aiming for the girls, while the boys cheered us on to drink. Needless to say, I obliged again. And again. And then before I could hold out for breath, there were little jiggers for the cuervo floating on the candle lit tables, and one landed on the spot next to my sanmig. To drink or not to drink? Perhaps something was beginning to take place in my head, that suddenly things started to look a little easy and groovy. You know…people were loosening up and smiling more silly, and I knew for the life of me I was heading to my destruction. And yet, I drank it all up. Second shot of cuervo, washed it down with beer where the tube ice has completely thawed and joined the yellow liquid. For the boys, or the men, this bravado for drinking was a matter of who was more virile amongst them, and whose culture (all Asians) definitely could hold it best….I didn’t give a damn. For me, it’s my devil beer or the deep blue sea. I was slightly aware that I’m beginning to get red in the face like a devil. I was flushed and free-wheeling….

We had all walked out of the bar for some whiff of the night air, and we went to the nearest gazebo where we could overlook the laguna. There was the flickerite in me saying that I should take some photos of the beautiful lights, but there was no way I could get myself to do that. Not anymore. I was beginning to feel my temples tight across my head and the throbbing pulse inside became more and more pronounced. I had decided to hold my drink down now. But what’s the use? The shamelessness of my act had oozed itself into my bloodstreams and I have begun to lose track of who I was, or who I was with.

I wouldn’t say that I acted a fool, but I had definitely said some things that I might not otherwise say when I am sober. That’s me. I have lucid awareness of what I was doing, unless I fell asleep and be elsewhere in my mind, away from the rowdiness and incoherence of my surroundings. But I was woken up, not a few times, and I know that a mix of drinks, and drinking uninhibitedly one night in every three or so years, ultimately lands me into something I would half-regret the next day. Because people will start telling me, with a slight sardonic chuckle, that I had pointed to an idiot or a sucker, or whispered some insolent,mean quips, that made them laugh out loud at the amusement of it all, while the idiot i try to ruin sits across me, wondering why this girl is so boozed up and suddenly looking rubbish. I lose.

awakening...

Reflecting on the events of the past weeks, I cannot help but suspect that something is up with the year 2007. Many unpleasant things have happened, not to me but to people I know and care about, and I can only wish the unfortunate string would be cut off this very instant and we can go about our business like we’ve always used to, minus the hard luck. As for my own life, it’s still the same…not so good and not so bad. I have a lot to be thankful for everyday, especially that the kids are growing up fine and healthy, but personally I have not found a good reason to really inhale and say “this is the life”. I am not complaining, but God knows I would be shamefully lying to myself if I said it is sweet and nice. There is the perennial pattern of being poor and sucking up to the system, and I mean all systems. In my mind I am a grand dame of some neverland, but in reality I am one of the nameless millions who carry on with their lives wishing for something better, and yet not getting as much as a notch higher, where comfort and quality of life are concerned. Is it because I am married into poor money, and that having children has been a poor choice as well? Oh god I wish not, because really I wouldn't trade any millions, if I had it, for the happiness I feel with my little children. But still, you wish for those millions, don’t you?….not for yourself, but for the children who right this very minute play in the yard, blissfully unaware of the worries and consternation you feel, while you look at them with sad eyes. I think that I have completely owned up to my responsibilities as a parent, and I can never be selfish enough to think of my needs, in deference to theirs, but it is the apparent truth that to fulfill whosever needs, we must provide….

On the other hand I recently finished this book, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin. It is a story of a married woman , Edna Pontellier, whose life seems to be in a cage, but not in a bad confining way, as it seems on the surface she has everything: a wealthy life, a generous husband and two lovely boys. However, deep inside her she wanted to be free of society’s rules, to be unlike all other women who conform and do as they were expected. She was awakening to a new sphere where she comes to be her own woman and appreciates her physical and external powers, which were pregnant with sensuality and the passion she otherwise found lacking in her relationship with her husband. She took on a lover, believing that she could sacrifice the unnecessary things and reject society’s expectations, and find the self she thought she had lost in the roles she was condemned to.

However in the end, she had to make her own tale’s conclusion, as her discovery of maternal giving and loving had led her to understand that she could not go on with her unique and independent sense of self, by being what she wants, and having to be a mother to her children and a wife to her husband, all at once. As her lover rejects her, she walks into the water and swims away from the shore and from everything, thus the suicide. And, probably, the belated purpose to find herself again.

Once I put the book down, I thought…is this me? I don’t mean the lover or suicide, even if to be honest I had entertained the thought of the latter vaguely once or twice, but yeah what the heck, any form of dying is painful unless you’re born with case of catatonia. But seriously, is this how some mothers or married women must feel? Somehow? Is there a minutest moment in our lives where we feel that having married and raising kids have made us lose our sense of womanhood, of self, of personal growth? And if like Edna, we live in a society, that in spite of its modernity, has double standards, and still frown at women who indulge in their individuality a little too openly that it threatens to tear up their so-called moral fiber, well…are we to assume a mute compliance, and be the perfect mothers and wives, loyal only to our masters? Maybe I can, or will not.

I am afraid though, that when I feel I have too much to fight for my evolution as a woman, in the event that I have the full command of my freedom that I could finally grasp it on my fingers, I would be much too old and useless to enjoy, or even want it...

Three Six

Was wondering whether I should say something about my birthday that just passed, as a thousand other thoughts swim in my mind like a teeming mass of little dots waiting to burgeon before me in a frenzy. Maybe I should anyway. As per usual, nothing of significance happened that day, except that I finally saw Makati after having been cooped up in the south for so long. I brought my little boy with me, and I am glad that Gabby seemed to flash back the same feeling of delight that I have at having seen some sort of civilization. It’s awesome to see that buildings have scraped the skies much higher than when I was last working there, and with growing curiosity I started taking snapshots, however much to Gabby’s annoyance in the end. People were getting busier and were dressing up much smarter. I felt like Gabby and I were like country mice meeting up with city mice cousins in a big scary place.

We had lunch with the cousin and my brother, they were both on a short break from work, and so it was down to the usual small talk of the urbane, and eating hastily while glancing at their wristwatches every so often, which I excuse them for, as I understand the corporate culture. I had a feeling though that I will never succeed in living in their kind of environment anymore, the hurried and harried life, as I prefer to spend and vacillate my slaving days in a mound of brambles, meaning the not so modern dusty south part of manila.

After saying our goodbyes and blowing kisses in the air, I dragged my son to glorietta. The afternoon heat was dreadful and I needed to down something on my parched throat. Gabby was complaining that he was tired and I had for a few moments needed to carry him to the shade. While in glorietta I was assailed with a tempting itch to buy something for myself, probably a new pair of shoes—fortunately I resisted the urge and remembered that my son has been egging me for a “yellow truck”. I know that a matchbox car would be quite harmless, but what do you know, I wasn’t prepared for the realization that my afternoon with him would lead me to.

We had left glorietta for toy kingdom and were walking around in circles for half an hour inside the store as he could not decide which one to get. We pretty much walked past hotwheels and matchbox cars, and I thought that he might ask for something really big and expensive, and I was gearing up myself up to say NO, just in case he hauls a thousand peso worth of toy from the shelf. He looks from one aisle to another, and this time I didn’t say a word. He took my hand and he led me. And after looking up and down the shelves, he made his verdict: let’s go home. I uttered an almost inaudible yes, but I said wait, are you sure. And the little boy couldn’t have been more resolute: Yes mommy, let’s go home.

I’ve been waiting for many a weary years to avenge myself for some unreasonable habit of spending in the past, and I finally see it coming, to save my life on my thirty-sixth birthday. My son, a little four year old thing, teaches me how to say no and mean no, and never look back.

And so it is.....

Love in deed does that the sweetest and the most painful thing to us. I had the disadvantage of seeing both last Saturday . I know it may be wrong to think it, but that was how it is to me. And so I write about it now.

I was giving a hand with the music to be played at the reception of my sister-in-law’s wedding. I made a cd-full of love songs, couple songs, but of course the indomitable me would always squeeze in something that is nice for me, although it might not be so for anyone else. And we were sitting there in one of the tables, waiting for the bride and groom to enter the room, this Damien rice song played in the background. I realized my lack of forethought while I was listening to the words. That it was not a wedding song for the couple, but for a supposedly spurned lover. I could not help but turn and glumly look at the person next to us who has been quiet the whole time…....

When sometimes love hasn’t come full circle,we go through the hurtful stage of losing things or people in our lives. Even when they exist right in front of us, we know that we would never have them. We have the choice to turn away, and look at the other side of our life, the brighter one perhaps---but sometimes we stay and confront the sad fact, brazen with our effort to be calm and collected, while deep inside we weep for what had not been.

He is our friend, a dear friend who has been with us in many milestones. I know that he was once in love with her, I do not know for sure if he still is. I think he does, a little. But he acted like a real gentleman and went with us to her wedding.

She was ecstatic as she walked down the aisle. A silhouette of a beautiful bride, tall and magnificent in her ivory gown, a steel of nerves trying to keep her wits about and her pace steady, in spite of the many nights and days she has exhausted herself preparing for her special day, almost single-handedly. I know that she had wanted this. Very much so. Her face was radiant, full of love, too overcome with joy as her true love awaits her in the altar. You could not trace a hint of sleeplessness and an ache to be done with it all.

He too is a picture of a happy young man, eyes brimming with dreams and trying to hold back tears of joy, a little embarrassed to show his emotions. But you can tell how his heart leaps in bounds. He is a good person, and there is nothing you can say that will fault him. He deserves his beautiful bride, and her life , and her sacred vows.

Things go in a whirl, it felt like a dream, the next thing I was conscious of was the couple kissing and people clapping in unison. It was over, and a new life has begun. But I lingered on the thought of the other person. How he sees the whole happy event in his sad, blameless eyes. How he could not deny his hurt and jade himself against feeling that he should have been the man holding the beautiful girl’s hand and slipping on the marriage ring. How he could be the one dreaming up a life of love, laughter, companionship and more love, from that day forward.….

But they are all good people, and I know that they know their places in the sun. He wished them well, I wished them well. But most of all, like a fairy godmother who makes it her business to grant a godchild’s desire, I wish HIM well. That he will find happiness and his one true love, and one day stop the secret rain pouring inside his heart….